The buck stops here.
State officials are asking Long Island hunters to help slaughter deer and thin out the soaring population that is leaving a trail of wrecked cars and ruined crops while spreading tick-borne diseases.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation is pushing for more locals to get deer management permits this season as deer thrive in Nassau and Suffolk counties, where the animals have no natural predators and access to an abundance of food sources.
“The DEC strives to manage deer populations at levels that are in balance with the available habitat and in alignment with public desires by incentivizing harvest of antlerless deer by hunters,” the state said of the new push ahead of hunting season this fall.
Applications must be filed before Oct. 1 for the permits, which allow hunters extra tags for antlerless deer. Hunters are allowed two under regular hunting licenses except where overpopulation is rampant — and the state is also offering “bonus” permits to help reduce the animals’ numbers.
Long Island hunters did manage to take out more deer this past season than the year before, according to the DEC, but not enough to make the dent needed to control the booming population.
The island remains one of the toughest spots to manage, officials said as fewer people take up hunting and swarms of deer push deeper into suburban neighborhoods.
“We’ve been concerned about deer overpopulation for quite some time,” said Leslie Lupo, a wildlife biologist with the DEC.
But animal rights activists believe there are better methods to get the deer population under control in Suffolk.
“The Department of Environmental Conservation should be supporting conservation — killing is not conservation,” said John Di Leonardo, executive director of Humane Long Island.
The group is pushing the state to look at non-lethal alternatives for population control like birth control for deer, planting naturally evolved vegetation they won’t eat, installing fencing, or even simple deterrents such as putting up radios, soap, or human hair to keep the animals away.
Deer are to blame for $59 million worth of crop losses each year and more than 70,000 car crashes statewide, with Suffolk County ranking third in New York for the most deer-caused collisions, according to officials and figures from State Farm.
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